Archive for the ‘christmas’ Category

There was not a chance we were going to let the season go by without featuring the Sugar Paper wrapping line for Target this year!

blush dots | navy plaid | gold dots | gold swirl (blush glitter in store only)
Aren’t these wrapping papers all just gorgeous? If you’re looking for a wow factor with your gift wrapping this year, look no further! All you need is something simple to finish each one off, the beautiful wrapping speaks for itself.

For an even easier wrapping option we paired brown craft bags with THIS gorgeous tissue paper. We love the scalloped edge!

THESE round gift boxes are our absolute favorite from the product line. We wish we could wrap every single gift in them!

Wrapping all those gifts for Christmas just got a whole lot more fun. We’re hoping to carve in a little time this weekend to put on a Christmas movie and get started on wrapping!

Coming up with original ideas for Christmas gifts gets a little hard year after year, don’t you agree? We came up with this gift idea for people on our lists we give something small to every year…neighbors, friends and coworkers. Of course we wanted to share the idea with you in case you are stumped for what to give this year too!

We love this gift idea for so many reasons…

1 | It focuses on Christ, the light of the world and the reason for the season!

2 | THIS lantern is so great to use for decor all year long and only uses a tea candle which is so easy to change out. Versatile gifts that can fit into any home are our favorite.

3 | The price tag! $3.99! Hard to beat…

4 | Delivery! For those of you not close to an Ikea the lantern can be shipped. We maximized the $10 shipping cost to Utah by ordering ten lanterns, making each lantern $4.99 which is still a great price.

5 | Add a ribbon and scripture HERE and you are done! A fast, easy and sentimental gift.

Do you have any new ideas for gifts this year? We’d love to hear what your planning!

Who else can hardly believe it’s December 5th???!!!
Life moves so fast! This year I didn’t think about my decorations too much. I put them up in two hours flat and am really pleased with how the ‘natural’ approach worked out.

My ‘brown/copper’ bin full of decorations called out to me, so that’s what we went with. We added a tree in our family room this year. This is where we spend most of our time together as a family and I wanted it to be an extra cozy space for Christmas!

The only decorations I bought this year were THESE new bottle brush trees. I feel they just updated my traditional decorations a little and are currently 30% off! I also added the champagne garlands we made HERE.

Also, just a little update on my Threshold rug (HERE). We’ve had the rug for about a year and it gets hammered! It’s where the babies play 95% of the time and it is holding up pretty well. It is definitely worn but spills clean up very easily on it and I still love how soft it is for the kids to play on. I’m pretty sure I’ll tire of pattern before it looks too shabby so for $150 I’m more than happy with the purchase.

Growing up putting up the Christmas tree every year was steeped in tradition. Mum and Dad and the big boys would bring home a fresh tree, and us little children would anxiously wait as they would try to anchor and straighten it into it’s bucket of sand (this sounds medieval, the 80’s were prior to the easy-up stands we have now). Mum would then string lights delicately and evenly over the tree as we un-boxed all of the ornaments and years of treasures, going back to 1070, the year our parents were wed. Finally all eight kids would get to hang the ornaments. The crowning jewel was our little robin bird that would be hid deep within the branches of the fir tree by our parents. It would then be a game to see who could find it first. We don’t remember a prize for the winner, just r-e-s-p-e-c-t from other siblings :)

Fake and pre-lit trees have found our way into our homes as adults (let’s not talk about how many fresh trees we’ve had dry out before Christmas or adventures hauling that thing home), but one tradition that has stayed is the robin game.

Sarah couldn’t find a cute robin for her tree but has found an owl instead that the girls are loving trying to find when she moves it around DAILY. So far this has been the hit of the season with the twins, twit twoo!

Do you have any little traditions like this? We’d love to hear what your family does surrounding the tree each year. One thing we know, is even though it was a tiny tradition we looked forward to it every year and it’s things like this we want to make special for our children too.

And by the way, our parents STILL haven’t caved and have a fresh tree. every. flipping. year! If it dies prior to Christmas they will go get another and decorate again. Dedication! You cannot beat the smell or magic of the real thing. We’re thinking we may get mini ones just for the smell!

What a weekend! We hope you guys had a great time with loved ones and yummy food! We’re super excited December is officially on it’s way, and with every hot chocolate and Christmas episode of Peppa Pig our little ones are getting giddy for the season, and really beginning to take things in! Which makes it all the more fun for us, of course!

We were practically giddy ourselves when Sarah’s box of Christmas cards arrived from Tiny Prints (HERE).

Silver and white is a color combo we never tire of.

The crispness of winter and sparkle of snow!

We gathered a few odds and ends to show you how pretty these two colors can be to wrap with.

We just can’t get enough of this classic style.

Thanks to Tiny Prints for the inspiration, you can see their whole Christmas card collection HERE!